I just starting casting bullets. I got a bunch of wheel weights from a local shop and melted them down to cast bullets out of. I have melted down pure lead before, so I know that it looks nice and silvery when molten and skimmed of any dross. Now when I melted down the wheel weights, the lead looks somewhat lumpy and slushy. I flux it and stir it and the lumps go away briefly but it never seems truly liquid. I know this has something to do with the antimony in it and maybe even the tin. I figured maybe the temp needed to be hotter to melt all the metal, but it didn't seem to help. The only thing that did was make the surface turn amber and then blue after a few seconds of not stirring it. What am I doing wrong here? This doesn't look like the lead in the videos I have seen. I am using a small Lee melting pot to melt it, and a small ladle with a pour spout to pour the lead into the molds. It seems to make good bullets, so I'm not that worried about it. It just really clogs up the spout in the ladle quickly and I have to stir it every 30 seconds to keep it from lumping up too bad. Anyone else experience something like this?
Slushy lead melt?
- Thread starter rgitzlaff
- Start date
IllinoisCoyoteHunter
New member
Did you cull your zinc WW's?
armoredman
New member
You might have zinc in there. if you do, your metal is ruined. Go to castboolits.gunloads.com for MUCH more info.
I thought the zinc ones would just float and I would skim those away with the steel clips. So you are saying that the zinc ones can melt in with everything else and screw up my metal? How do you cull those out among all the other wheel weights? So, with no zinc in it, it will not be all slushy like I am seeing?
armoredman
New member
How high is your temp? Mine is slushy until I reach a good temp and then it is shiny after being fluxed and skimmed. You did flux and skim, right? Since you are used to pure lead you may indeed have just too low temperature, since I now notice you said it seems to make good bullets. IIRC, lead with mixed in zinc will not fillout correctly. Did you melt the wheelweight directly in the pot and make your bullets from that? Most people smelt in one pot to avoid the left over garbage, then cast ingots to use in a clean pot for casting.
Confirm temp first !!
If still slushy at 750f you have been zinced !!!!
First if ya feel like the bullets are filling out well & can use em & can trudge thru it all by all means do so !!
But ifin ya want to do summtin `bout it here`s what I did with a batch that was given to me , I put it on a good heat source & heated it to 850 degrees NO stirring the zinc will float to the top the hotter the better but within reason !!!
Skim the "oatmeal" off a little at the time , some claims have been made that fluxing with sulphur will pull zinc out , I have no exp. with it .
The batch I had I skimmed at that temp for a spell , probably dipped some good out with the bad ,but the alloy finally did fillout the corners of the mold well enuff to use .
I`d be real interested in the results of fluxing with sulphur though !!!!
Stay upwind fosho !!!!
Oh , the bullets cast with zinc contamination will have a crystaline pattern on the outer surface like frosted bullets except more pronounced & hard as wood pecker lips !!!
From now on check your weights closer pullin out the zinc 1s , I sorted a bucket of lately & got 37#s of zinc weights , If any question try cuttin with a pair of side cutters zinc is much tuffer to cut !!!!!
The other alternative is try & dilute the zinc to a precentage not to affect pouring bullets , pour some fishing weights with it or flat out can it !!
Please tell us ya did`nt melt em all in 1 batch !!!
If ya go to http://castboolits.gunloads.com/ some buy the zinced lead to cast cannon balls with !!
If still slushy at 750f you have been zinced !!!!
First if ya feel like the bullets are filling out well & can use em & can trudge thru it all by all means do so !!
But ifin ya want to do summtin `bout it here`s what I did with a batch that was given to me , I put it on a good heat source & heated it to 850 degrees NO stirring the zinc will float to the top the hotter the better but within reason !!!
Skim the "oatmeal" off a little at the time , some claims have been made that fluxing with sulphur will pull zinc out , I have no exp. with it .
The batch I had I skimmed at that temp for a spell , probably dipped some good out with the bad ,but the alloy finally did fillout the corners of the mold well enuff to use .
I`d be real interested in the results of fluxing with sulphur though !!!!
Stay upwind fosho !!!!
Oh , the bullets cast with zinc contamination will have a crystaline pattern on the outer surface like frosted bullets except more pronounced & hard as wood pecker lips !!!
From now on check your weights closer pullin out the zinc 1s , I sorted a bucket of lately & got 37#s of zinc weights , If any question try cuttin with a pair of side cutters zinc is much tuffer to cut !!!!!
The other alternative is try & dilute the zinc to a precentage not to affect pouring bullets , pour some fishing weights with it or flat out can it !!
Please tell us ya did`nt melt em all in 1 batch !!!
If ya go to http://castboolits.gunloads.com/ some buy the zinced lead to cast cannon balls with !!
From what I've heard, zinc melts at a higher temp than lead/ww/linotype.
If you only heat to about 675 or so, you will melt all the lead/tin alloy, but will not melt the zinc, which should float to the top.
The key to this, of course, is to have an accurate lead melting thermometer. Other than that, you would have to increase your heat SLOWLY until everything melts at once. If it all melts pretty much at the same time, it should all be lead/tin.
I think zinc doesn't melt until the upper 700's or so.. I'll have to check. If you are pretty sure you have no zinc in your melt, then the oatmeal looking stuff on top is the antimony that is separated from the lead. Fluxing should blend it back together. Don't flux until you are at your casting temperature. Flux thoroughly, then leave it alone until you are finished casting with that "batch", or potful. Don't add any sprues, or anything back in until you have finished casting with that batch. Then add sprues, bad boolits, extra metal, etc, all in at one time. Let it come back up to casting temp, flux again, and start casting. Lather, rinse repeat...
EDIT: according to Wikipedia
the melting temp of zinc is 787.15 F.
EDIT: pure lead melts at 621.3 F
tin melts at 429 F
So, you have about a 150 degree window of safety there.. which shows why a thermometer is a reeeealy good idea.
If you only heat to about 675 or so, you will melt all the lead/tin alloy, but will not melt the zinc, which should float to the top.
The key to this, of course, is to have an accurate lead melting thermometer. Other than that, you would have to increase your heat SLOWLY until everything melts at once. If it all melts pretty much at the same time, it should all be lead/tin.
I think zinc doesn't melt until the upper 700's or so.. I'll have to check. If you are pretty sure you have no zinc in your melt, then the oatmeal looking stuff on top is the antimony that is separated from the lead. Fluxing should blend it back together. Don't flux until you are at your casting temperature. Flux thoroughly, then leave it alone until you are finished casting with that "batch", or potful. Don't add any sprues, or anything back in until you have finished casting with that batch. Then add sprues, bad boolits, extra metal, etc, all in at one time. Let it come back up to casting temp, flux again, and start casting. Lather, rinse repeat...
EDIT: according to Wikipedia
the melting temp of zinc is 787.15 F.EDIT: pure lead melts at 621.3 F
tin melts at 429 F
So, you have about a 150 degree window of safety there.. which shows why a thermometer is a reeeealy good idea.
Last edited:
maillemaker
New member
Yeah, not much can be said until you know what temp you are at.
The melting point of zinc is not much higher than lead, so you need to be watchful as your weights start to melt so that you can spoon off whatever is floating.
Steve
The melting point of zinc is not much higher than lead, so you need to be watchful as your weights start to melt so that you can spoon off whatever is floating.
Steve
Thanks for the input everyone. At this point, I am very certain it must be zinc contamination. I do not own a thermometer so I probably turned the heat up too hot not thinking it would do any harm. I mistakenly thought zinc had a much higher melting temp than it does. I will soon have an RCBS thermometer on order and will not make this same mistake again. Instead it will be all new mistakes 
My next adventure will be to alloy antimony with lead and tin. That zinc batch was all the wheel weights I had, but I still have a few hundred pounds of range lead (99.9% from muzzleloaders so it is most likely mostly pure lead) that I melted into ingots and some 50/50 solder and antimony shot to get some alloy to the hardness I want it.
My next adventure will be to alloy antimony with lead and tin. That zinc batch was all the wheel weights I had, but I still have a few hundred pounds of range lead (99.9% from muzzleloaders so it is most likely mostly pure lead) that I melted into ingots and some 50/50 solder and antimony shot to get some alloy to the hardness I want it.
rgitzlaff
At least ya got a line on some more lead to work with !!!!
Alot of MLs use stik on weights which run in the 30-40 to 1 range , tin will only harden lead so much (more than 2-2.5%is wasting tin) but will make it tuffer, antimony is the real hardener with a little arsenic.
If ya keep ya soft seperated (to have a base alloy) you may be able to hook up with some MLs that cast , I have 1 by me that will trade me 2#WW for 1#of stikons , but not a big trade though 10# at the time .
If ya run into a situation to buy some alloy google antimony man !!!!
At least ya got a line on some more lead to work with !!!!
Alot of MLs use stik on weights which run in the 30-40 to 1 range , tin will only harden lead so much (more than 2-2.5%is wasting tin) but will make it tuffer, antimony is the real hardener with a little arsenic.
If ya keep ya soft seperated (to have a base alloy) you may be able to hook up with some MLs that cast , I have 1 by me that will trade me 2#WW for 1#of stikons , but not a big trade though 10# at the time .
If ya run into a situation to buy some alloy google antimony man !!!!